Metal Gear Parallax: Perihelion
by The Tesseract Seraph
Summary: When Raiden's Patriot watchdog kills his girlfriend, both end up spiraling back into the world of Patriot intrigue they thought they left behind... 6.26.06: Not quite abandoned, but not vital, either.
1. Rainy Days and Thursdays

  
  


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**Author's Note:** So, here we go again. :} By popular demand, I'm expanding to a longer work with Abby. I'm sorry if these initial chapters are confusing--they're based on the events of Metal Gear Parallax: Antipodes, which, while I have it planned it almost in its entirety in my head, has yet to be written. Oopsies. I'll either get cracking writing that, or...just explain it as we go along. :} Perhaps in more author's notes, if people start yellin'.  
Yes, this is the second time I've changed the title. I'm fussy; bear with me.  
**Disclaimer of Great Justice:** I don't own the Metal Gear series. I don't own Manhattan, either, though if I get enough beads, I bet I'd be able to buy it...*ahem* In fact, about all I own in here is the idea of Abernathy, since the English language definitely belongs to someone else. Even his NAME belongs to other people...*gripe* 

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Metal Gear Parallax: Perihelion

  
_parallax (n): an apparent change in the position of an object when the person looking at the object changes position.  
perihelion (n): the point in the orbit of a planet or other astronomical body at which it comes closest to the Sun._  
  
**Chapter 1**: Rainy Days and Thursdays  
Thursday afternoon was the sweetest deception of the entire week. Many a Thursday has in the past proven to be calm and lazy, the perfect invitation to a restful weekend, only to have a hectic Friday slap you in the face. This particular Thursday was more perfect than most, warm and sweetly breezy, begging all comers to call in sick and spend the rest of the day in blissful contemplation of spring.  
Alas, such a gleeful dereliction of duty was beyond contemplation for the majority of Manhattan's wage earners. Most were driven by that indefatigable American sense of duty through peer pressure; the rest that hadn't yet skived off were the lucky stiffs with jobs that let them enjoy the pleasures of the afternoon without losing a day's pay. Distinctly not among that select latter group was a young fellow who went by the name of Jack, even now making his way slowly home among the Manhattan rush-hour traffic.  
Not, mind, that Jack begrudged even the slight respite his evening hours off gave him; oh, no, not him. There was simple pleasure in being a normal person for once, sliding comfortably into the routine of a civilian citizen of the island and shucking off all the pain and distress his former life had enjoyed heaping on him. The wounds from the latest debacle were even healing neatly; 'his' doctor was even of a disposition sunny enough to forecast he wouldn't have any trouble with his hands in the future. The supposed 'work-related' breaks had knit cleanly, with no one the wiser that his shattered fingers were the work of a sadistic, hell-bent torturer and not, say, a runaway equipment cart. The track marks left by the Skull Suit's cannulae, on the other hand, had nearly gotten him committed to drug rehab. But for the grace of God and Rosemary, he'd likely still be there.  
Yes, life was definitely looking up, Jack reflected as he paused at a corner for traffic. As the honking press of cars wound on before him--promising a minute's wait before enough of a gap to dash through presented itself--he stretched languidly, rising up on his toes with his fingers splayed above his head. It had been a long day, even if his current job with a subway maintenance crew was a regular nine-to-five.  
At least this one, of all the various odd roles he'd filled in the pursuit of money, promised to be somewhat stable. In the backsliding economy, he--like many others--had been forced to scrounge up what he could in an employer's market, taking whatever came for as long as it stuck around. Trimming trees, bagging groceries, patrolling a library on the graveyard shift, even a stint as a male model for a company too cheap to hire union; at least none of them, even the guard work, resembled soldiering enough to make him uneasy.  
The light changed, breaking in on Jack's reflections. He eased out of his stretch, tossing his head and shaking his shoulders before joining up with the lockstep of a hundred pedestrians streaming out across the street. For once, he was just another one of them, and it felt good. He achieved the curb milliseconds before the light changed again, a ubiquitous yellow taxi nearly mowing him down as he did. The exchange of invective and the one-fingered salute with the cabby was almost friendly in its familiarity, another little part of the civilian routine that Jack enjoyed to the hilt.  
Turning back from the street, he tilted his head back, gazing up at the row of brownstones that spread out before him. Almost home; it was less than half a block walking to the dingy apartment that he and Rosemary--and sometimes Abernathy, when his clone-brother could be induced to come home before dawn--shared. One of Jack's hands flitted to the pocket of his windbreaker, checking for his keys; it really wouldn't do to be locked out--again--and have to endure the landlady's too-familiar staring as she let him in. Thankfully, the keys were there.  
He reached 'home' a few minutes before five-thirty--the shortest 'commute' he'd had yet--and mounted up the steps two at a time. He found--quite to his surprise--that he was whistling. Whistling! And not some kind of funerary march or dirge-like militant song, but some airheaded pop music that was being overplayed on the top ten lists of FM stations around the country. If he remembered rightly, Rose was rather fond of the song, which was typical of her. He was starting to surprise himself with how easily he was getting into the rhythm of being normal; and a pleasant surprise it was.  
They lived three stories up; another short walk, when one took the steps two and three at a time. Maybe, Jack reflected, Rosemary would be feeling well enough that he could lure her out to a movie. Heck, they could even drag Abernathy along, if the twitchy little albino wasn't off somewhere, or unconscious on the couch. That new movie with the submarine looked interesting--what was its name? _K_...K-something-or-other. On second thought, though, it might be better if they just went to some chick flick Abby and Rose could both get mushy over; he'd be bored stiff, but submarines and the Cold War meant military, and even if he still sort of enjoyed war movies, nobody else needed to be reminded about it...  
There was the door. 312A. Jack scrounged in his pocket for the keys, came up with the right one and unlocked the door. Slipping inside, he shut it behind him, tossed the keys on the hall table and began pulling off his windbreaker. "Anyone home?" he called with uncommon cheer as he hung the jacket up. No answer came; but then, that was hardly a surprise, given Rose's habits toward napping the afternoons away. _Losing the kid must've hit her hard,_ Jack reflected, brows furrowing slightly. Himself, he'd been upset in an atavistic way about the loss of their unborn child, but also--guiltily--relieved. The thought of being a father had, frankly, scared the piss out of him.  
As Jack started down the hall, something about the quality of the silence began to tickle the old combat senses at the back of his mind. He paused on the throw rug, listening a moment longer. Nothing...but a bad nothing, in a tiny apartment that should have had at least one live person in it. No sound of breathing from the bedroom to the right; none of Abby's irritating little snores emanating from the living room and the couch, either. A spot between Jack's shoulder blades began to prickle with the cold feel of that sixth sense most soldiers had, the one for self-preservation.  
He continued down the hall, but this time much more cautiously, his tread no longer that self-confident swagger of his civilian persona but the light-footed sneaking step he adopted during combat missions. Step lightly, toes first, ease down onto the flat of the foot once you were sure the floor wasn't going to give or make noise, keep your knees bent so you were ready to spring in any direction...he shivered as he peeked into the kitchen, looking for any signs of a scuffle. Nothing. It was times like this that he heartily wished he had the nerve to get a gun permit so he could carry at least a pistol with him at all times.  
There was nothing to it, though. Jack had vowed, so long as he was sticking around in Manhattan, that he wouldn't call any more attention to his continued presence here. Look at what had happened when he tried to register for a new driver's license, for crying out loud; the memory of Revolver Ocelot's midnight raid on the other apartment still chilled him to the bone. He eased away from the wall, chewing on the inside of his lower lip as he did so.  
_Maybe I'm wrong to be this paranoid,_ he thought as he continued his slow sneak toward the end of the hall and the living room. _Maybe it's nothing. Maybe Rose managed to pry Abernathy off the couch and they both went shopping for nail polish or something._ Maybe. And maybe there were pigs with wings vying with the pigeons for living space on the ledge outside his bedroom window.  
The bedroom, as Jack had suspected, yielded no clues at all--the bed was in the disheveled state he had left it in that morning, there were still socks on the floor, and somehow his bottle of calcium tablets had tried to commit suicide by leaping off the nightstand. In other words, it looked like it had been ransacked, but in no way other than the normal one. He pulled back from the doorway, leaning up against the wall and raising his eyes to the ceiling. He so wanted this to be just some paranoid delusion, just the ugly remnants of the Big Shell incident and last month's debacle, but...but...but the icy little demon-feet running up and down his spine wouldn't let him think that. His senses might be wrong, he might be hallucinating the hollow silence of the apartment, but the sixth sense hadn't ever been wrong, in or out of combat.  
As he dropped his gaze from the featureless ceiling, breathing out a prayer to silent heaven, something on the floor in the living room caught his eye. In the afternoon light from the glass patio doors, he admitted, the hand-shaped shadow could be cast by anything. Except every moment he stared at it made it look less and less like a shadow and more and more like a real hand, outflung as if in desperation across the floor of the living room. He peeled himself off the wall, the chill feeling at the base of his spine creeping around to nestle in the pit of his stomach.  
The hand resolved into a wrist as Jack inched down the last few feet of the hall, then an arm--a thin, feminine arm, he noted nervously--was visible as his angle with the doorway changed. Then a shoulder, and then the brilliant crimson stain of a widening puddle of blood on the off-white carpet--  
Jack snapped out of his tense posture, instantly upright, jerking his head away from the ugly vision as if to deny that it was happening. His teeth clenched reflectively, the pain of his bitten lip reminding him volubly that this was not another nightmare but the real thing. And, as it was the real thing, it was not very likely that just by pretending he had not just seen what he thought he saw there on the floor would make it go away. He glanced back again, the chill unfolding itself now into full, yammering fear at the back of his mind. Hand, wrist, arm, shoulder, bloodstain...oh hell. Oh hell, oh please, not this, not now, it's not real...  
Throwing caution to the winds, he darted the last few feet to the room, impelled by shrieking fear and nervous energy. There, in the warm and golden light of late afternoon, was exactly what he had not wanted to see: Rosemary, sprawled facedown with limbs askew in a puddle of blood. She was also, the controlling, analytical part of Jack's mind noted, very, very still. Humans did not normally lay that still, in fact. Even when tranquilized, most still trembled slightly with inspiration and exhalation as they lay on the floor like that...  
"Rose--!" The outcry startled Jack; it was his own voice that spoke, but her name had forced itself from his lips almost of its own accord. "Rose! Rose, answer me! Are you all right? Rose! ROSE!" He dropped to a crouch beside her, still nattering on even as the analytical part of him directed him to take her by the shoulders and roll her over. "Rose, answer me. This isn't funny. Are you hurt? What's wrong? Talk to me!"  
The scene only became worse as he got her on her back; even the fearful voice that somehow managed to speak from his traitor mouth had to shut up as it noted the nasty mess the right side of her neck had become. _Someone with a butcher knife,_ came the analytical thought. _Or a hollow-point round, that clipped her aorta and lodged itself somewhere else. She must have bled to death._ Which explained the spatters of blood on the furniture and elsewhere; arterial blood pressure, continued the analysis, was strong enough to spurt several yards if an artery were suddenly cut.  
The blood and body were still warm, too, and the streamers of blood elsewhere had yet to congeal. Obviously, the killing had taken place perhaps minutes ago, maybe even when he was so cheerily climbing the stairs; the shooter had a silenced pistol, though he didn't yet know what type it might have been. _A revolver_, an ugly little voice spoke from the back of his mind. _Colt. Single-Action Army._ But he didn't know if such a gun could take a suppressor, though the hollow-point rounds were a distinct possibility. Perhaps a SOCOM, or an unmodified M9--  
_Your girlfriend has just been murdered, and you're worrying about the damn pistol that shot her? What the hell are you, some kind of monster?! Why aren't you screaming and sobbing right about now?! At least show a little feeling, you heartless bastard!_ A part of his combat mindset reached out and squelched the softer, emotional bits of him. Sure, she was dead, and that would hurt a hell of a lot later, but right now, one of his team was down and the enemy was--he glanced up briefly, toward the patio; the doors weren't shattered by gunshot--inside his territory. Grief was for after Jack found the rat-bastard and killed him before he could kill Jack.  
He reached out, closing Rose's horrified eyes and rising slowly from his crouch. Sweeping the floor with his gaze, he noted the presence of a gun--his SOCOM--several feet from her outstretched right hand. The clip was missing; it was useless to him, as it probably had been to her. At least he could hope she'd had the presence of mind to try and shoot her attacker; the clip may have been removed later, and a crippled adversary with a gun was more promising than a healthy one.  
And--there, beyond the fallen SOCOM, his first clue to the person he faced. Footprints dented the carpet, each heel-print bright red from Rose's blood. Whoever it was probably wasn't used to killing, hadn't realized the kind of mess it left. A newcomer to the arts of war, Jack noted disparagingly. And hopefully--such a grievous mistake neatly ruled out a number of his enemies, unless one of them had decided to toy with him; but that didn't seem to be a part of their style. Now, as to where the parti-colored footprints led...  
Jack followed the line with his eyes; they did not, as he initially suspected, lead to the patio and freedom, but to...his...chair? It was high-backed and currently faced the patio; if someone was still sitting in it, it was impossible to tell. Whoever it was, if he was still there, had been silent witness to Jack's initial outburst. That was enough to warrant he do a little torturing of his own before putting this bastard down.  
It was three strides from Rosemary's broken-doll body to the end table, and another two to the chair. Along the way, Jack grabbed the nearest weapon to hand--an empty vase of leaded crystal, with wicked facets--and held it before him, confident he could break his adversary's arm before any weapon was raised against him. He stepped around the chair, adrenaline neatly obliterating any need to steel himself, and spoke.  
"All right, you motherloving son-of-a-bitch, you got her but you sure as hell--_Abernathy?!"_

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Creative contents of this document are © 2002 Kim Kondratieff.


	2. Quality Time

  
  


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**Chapter 2**: Quality Time  
His clone-brother presented a cognitively dissonant sight, seated comfortably--if stiffly--in the chair, a picture of composure in black and white, one booted foot resting on the opposite knee, a book in hand and a gun in his lap. Abernathy glanced up from his reading, pink eyes oddly placid behind his thick glasses in the face of Jack's confused ire, and marked his place in his book with a finger. "Hullo, Jack. I'd wondered when you'd get home."  
Jack gaped. There was nothing to do for it but gape. Abernathy's gall--his sheer gall--was a constant source of amazement to his progenitor, but such impassive calm in the face of, of chaos, of murder, was enough to nearly stop Jack's heart with the shock. Rose dead, Abby this withdrawn, what next? Solidus appearing from the closet? Dead Cell popping out from behind the rest of his furniture and shouting 'surprise'? He swallowed, heavily, and scrabbled frantically for his thoughts. "Abernathy. Rose...Rose is dead. Do you--?"  
"--Know anything about this injustice?" The clone smiled without humor, dog-earring his page and setting the book down atop the pistol. "Of course. I killed her."  
"...you...what?" Jack's thoughts began to shake themselves free of shock like a dog would water, his combat focus regrouping itself. "Killed her. A messy affair, if I do say so myself." He paused, face settling into a little moue of disgust. "I hadn't realized humans could bleed so much. Pity. At least black is easy to launder, hmm?"  
The vase he'd been intending to use as a weapon had long since slipped from Jack's nerveless fingers, rolling a foot or two to fetch up against a footrest. He didn't move to retrieve it. "You killed her."  
"Yes, I'd thought we'd already established that. My, but you're looking paler than usual, brother-mine. Would it help if I told you that you'll probably look back on this sordid little incident in a few years and laugh?"  
A whirlwind of mindless rage and impossible grief that had been building in Jack's mind since he first noted the eerie silence of his apartment screwed itself up into a full tempest, compelling him to just stop _thinking_ about the impossibility of the situation and act. He sprang at Abernathy, hands outstretched to grab the scrawny little albino by the throat and _shake_ him until his neck snapped or he confessed to this being some kind of tremendous, sick joke.  
Abernathy had the presence of mind to get out of the range of the attack; his spastic, abrupt twitch backward toppled the chair sideways, the entire assemblage, Jack and chair, pinning him to the carpet. Jack was on his feet again in an instant, kicking the chair out of the way as if it were so much plywood and making another grab for his clone. If he could just get his hands on Abby, the fight would be over in a matter of seconds.  
No such luck. The little bastard, untrained as he was in combat, was a hell of a lot faster than Jack gave him credit for. He had already squirmed out from under the chair and bounced back to his feet even as Jack snatched at him again; he fell back, tripping over the end table and going sprawling. Even with the wind knocked out of him, though, he was thinking far enough ahead to kick the end table in Jack's direction.  
It wasn't enough of a deterrence. Seeing the move coming, Jack vaulted the table, landing easily and lashing out with a foot at the prone Abby. The clone flinched back from the attack, grunting in pain as the kick caught him across the ribs. He struggled to his knees again, only to have Jack pounce on him and slam him bodily up against the wall, a hand at his throat.  
By now, Jack's vision had clouded with red, his instincts rewiring his reaction time to a fraction of a second. This--combat--was better than sex, even as underhanded and dirty as the close-quarters little affair was. Even if Abernathy were a damn unsatisfying opponent, as weak and useless at fighting as he was, there would still be pleasure in slowly crushing his trachea and watching him suffer his death out. "Stop struggling, you little goth bastard. Isn't this the kind of thing you keep asking for?" he hissed between clenched teeth, endeavoring to shove his struggling clone square through the wall, if he could manage it.  
Goth or no, Abernathy seemed to have other ideas in mind than dying. With his vision so narrowed, Jack had scarcely any warning before catching a vicious knee to the groin. His rage hissed out into an exclamation of pain; the agony was not bad enough to deter him, but enough that he loosened his grip. Abernathy wiggled nimbly out of Jack's grip, his sense apparently catching up with him as he made a break for the door.  
Something as stupid as a little pain wasn't going to stop Jack from upping the murder count to two. He gritted his teeth and dove after Abernathy, tackling him and sending them both rolling into the opposite wall. The impact left them both stunned for a moment. Jack shook the disorientation first, had the presence of mind to claw his way out from under his clone. It took snapping Abernathy's wrist to do it, the sound of bone crunching providing a certain cold satisfaction.  
He ended up sitting on Abernathy, straddling the clone's chest with his hands locked in a death grip around the other's throat. It was pleasure itself to tighten his grip fractionally and watch the albino squirm and struggle for air. If he just held on a little longer, the entire problem would be over and poor, dead Rosemary would be avenged.  
The analytical part of his mind called a halt to the madness. The bloodlust retreated, deprived of its prize and muttering imprecations; Jack eased up slightly on Abernathy's throat, giving the other man enough freedom to gulp down a breath or two of air. "Now, wasn't that fun?" Jack snarled softly, expression still twitching somewhere between the chill mask and a manic grin.  
Apparently afraid of the repercussions if he didn't agree, Abernathy nodded as best he could. The naked fear on his face was only exacerbated by his myopic squint; his glasses were somewhere else on the floor, probably hopelessly broken. _Pity you're only such a snaky bastard when you're sure you're not going to get killed, brother._ "You wanna do it again?" The manic grin won, Jack baring his teeth in a smile that was definitely not amused.  
This time Abernathy shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut in pain and terror.  
"Good enough. You're going to answer my questions now, right?"  
Nod.  
"No smartass remarks, Abby?"  
He shook his head.  
"Good. I hear one more damn thing like that out of you, and I'm breaking your other wrist. Got me?"  
Nod.  
"I see we understand each other." Jack paused, freeing up one hand to swipe blood out of his eyes. He had a cut above his right eyebrow; heaven knew how that had happened. The insistent rivulet of blood tickled. No matter. "You killed Rose."  
Abernathy opened one pink eye cautiously, then the other. He licked at a trickle of blood from a split lip, then spoke, picking his words carefully. "Would it help my suit any, your honor, if I said you'll thank me for it?"  
Jack moved his free hand to Abernathy's left, grabbing his clone's hand and bending it backwards with exaggerated care. "Damn it, Abby," he replied, tone conciliatory and conversational. "I thought we weren't going to have any of this." He could feel bone grinding against bone beneath his fingers; another few millimeters, and Abernathy would sport a matched set of broken wrists.  
"Uncle!" the clone spat between two agonized breaths. Reluctantly, Jack eased up. "...No...smartass remarks. Just...don't break the other wrist."  
"You give me what I want, and I'll stop hurting you." _Maybe_, he amended mentally. "Fine. Wh... whatever. I did kill her, like I said. That enough for you?"  
"No. _Why_, dammit?" Jack's voice caught on the word 'why'; he hadn't thought that there was room enough with the rage for the grief to get through. "What the hell made you turn on her, Abby? She was the one who wanted you here in the first place!"  
The last little spark of defiance in Abernathy's eyes seemed to die at Jack's words, the clone flicking his gaze away from his progenitor's. He didn't say anything. Jack settled his hand across the other's wrist again, fully intending to snap it this time, pleading or no.  
That, at least, won words from his clone. "Wait, Drummerboy, dammit! Don't just friggin' _kill_ me because you've got your damn panties in a bunch!" Abernathy glanced back up, though there was still no more defiance in his gaze. His tone softened as he continued, the brief flare of anger dimming. "...Look, just let me up, Jack. It hurts. Please...I...can't...I can't think like this, not properly. It's hard enough trying to explain this without you sitting on my damn chest and threatening to break every bone in my body just because I don't have the right answers for you."  
Jack remained silent, not relenting. _Let him grovel. He deserves it, for what he did._ "Jack, damn you! Are you so screwed up inside you can't even recognize your own family, man! You owe me one for saving your stupid hide from Ocelot! At least give me that!" Abernathy broke off, panting in agony.  
He was right, though. Jack had enough of a sense of honor that the reminder of his life-debt to the clone made him ease up. "Fine. I won't break your other wrist until you've told me all you want to. Satisfied?"  
"Hell no! Let me _up!_" The last word was more a sob of pain. "Please! If it makes you feel better, I'll sit here and be a good little boy until you find the damn gun I used to kill her, and then you can hold it to my head the whole time! Just let me up!"  
It was a pitiful sight to watch Abernathy's backbiting attitude dissolve so quickly to tears under the threat of further pain. It almost took the fun out of the whole thing for Jack--almost. He said nothing for several moments, letting Abby sob with mixed anoxia and pain, then eased up on his grip and stood.  
Obviously hurting, the clone eased himself to a sitting position, cradling his right arm against his chest and watching Jack uneasily. Finally, he bit his bleeding lower lip and dropped his gaze. "...You...uh. I know you didn't want to do that. ...Uhm. ...Thanks."  
That was the first time in Jack's memory that Abernathy had actually _thanked_ him for anything; it drew a bark of laughter from him. "So now you thank me. As if food, shelter, and protection from the Patriots just _isn't_ enough from you, I have to beat the snot out of you before you thank me." _And you killed Rose. Some gratitude._  
"...Shut up," came the weak reply. "Just shut up, okay? I'm not an idiot to not know that you didn't have to do half of what you did for me; you didn't even have to...to do anything. I was just the annoying little reminder that your past wasn't going to let you go; you could have kicked me out, and I'm fine with that. But don't you dare throw my gratitude back in my face, Drummerboy. Don't you _dare_. You don't know how long I've wanted to be independent; you don't have any right to tell me anything about what I should and shouldn't be gracious for."  
So perhaps the audacity hadn't been beaten out of Abernathy, for the impromptu lecture certainly had enough misplaced arrogance that it took Jack's breath away. "So I suppose your deciding that _my_ fiancŽe needed to die was just another little way of showing your thanks, huh?" he spat, recovering his composure.  
"Yes, but what do you care? She was going to kill you, Jack. Not that you've even the eyes to see something that obvious. Some super-soldier you are, that I have to protect you from the most damnably obvious threat of all."  
That was quite enough. The incident had descended from nightmare to barracks brawl to some kind of sordid excuse for a soap opera that Kafka might have written. "And here I thought that diplomats were supposed to be better liars." He cast around for the missing gun--there, over near the overturned chair and dented end table. It would take him a minute to get it, but Abernathy was so wounded that he wouldn't make it to the door before Jack got to the pistol and shot him in the back like the slime he was.  
"Ha. I suppose it'll shock the damn pants right off of you if I say that I've never lied to anyone in my whole miserable life. You least of all." The clone wasn't even paying attention; he wasn't even going to make this difficult. Jack began edging toward the pistol.  
"Like hell I'll believe that."  
"I guess it was too much to think you might trust me half as much as you did her." Eyes still half-closed with pain, Abby raised his head and nodded toward Rose's corpse, still lying where Jack had first found it.  
"She was the only thing I had left after the Patriots got through with me. Why shouldn't I have?" Two more steps, and he'd have the gun.  
"After she'd confessed to lying to you already? After all that she _put you through_?" The anemic giggle that rose from Jack's clone was tinged with hysteria.  
He was probably going into shock from his injuries, came the analytical assessment. Losing his grip on reality, or why else would he fabricate such a bizarre story to account for his having murdered Rose in cold blood? _Dear, sweet Rose_...Except that Abernathy did have a point, damn him. Rose had lied, not once, but several times. She'd broken his confidence, snuck around behind his back, and then accused him of being too wrapped up in his own problems to see her for what she was. And he'd still trusted her..."I love...loved her."  
"More like she was the cutest piece of tail to ever cross your sights. You were infatuated, Drummerboy. Admit it."  
One more step to the pistol. "Who're you to talk? You hardly even know what love is. You're queer, too."  
That won no response at all from Abernathy. Jack eased another step to the right, reached down and grabbed the gun, feeling suddenly comforted by the familiar weight of a weapon. He checked the clip as the silence from Abby's quarter continued; it was almost full, with only a round missing.  
"...Maybe they were right."  
Jack slid the clip back home, flicked the safety off. "Who?"  
"The Patriots."  
"Right about what?" He half-turned to face his seated clone, sighting without yet raising the gun.  
"You. That you were some kind of narcissist, too infatuated with your own pain to care about anything but protecting yourself." Cloth rasped against cloth as Abernathy shifted his weight slightly.  
"I always thought you just trusted people like _her_ implicitly. So much that you didn't want to believe anything that might ruin the lovely illusion she built for you, even when all the evidence was laid out before you. It took her own confession of her part in it to get through to you and put a little crack in that trust, didn't it?"  
Without replying, Jack raised the gun, sighting again. One bullet right through the temple, and he wouldn't have to worry about the little albino rat screwing up his life ever again. For his part, Abernathy let the silence stretch out a moment longer, then sighed and slumped further in on himself.  
"I suppose that just proves, for all I thought I could get out from under your shadow, that we're the same person after all. Here you were, dreaming of some fantasy love affair with a girl who never existed, and there I was, imagining you believed the lies I saw right through because you were--noble." He spat the word, as if it were a curse.  
"You were stupid, but noble, because you knew how to trust the people you cared about. You made her do something foreign to her lying nature, you know. She did mean it when she said she was in love; I knew her for long enough to know that she never meant to fall in love, just like she told you. You brought out the damned _best_ in people because you trusted them."  
Jack's aim didn't waver. "So? Is there a point to all this?"  
Abernathy finally raised his head, tilting it toward Jack and merely gazing at him for a moment. Jack knew well enough the clone couldn't see him at this range, but it was unnerving nonetheless. "I'm tempted to tell you that it's not one you'd understand, under that bone-deep layer of aggression you've grown. But then, I've yet to lie to you; and besides, it will be so--damn--satisfying if you shoot me just because you can't handle what I've got to say.  
"I bought into you too, Jack. I believed in you, even when I was working as your doppelganger for the Patriots. You know how much I needed to know about you to--to--profile you for them? To predict your every move? A damn lot. Enough that I'm suddenly very scared that I could be that wrong, and I'll be happy to die after I get this all out because I never thought I could be so mistaken about you. I trusted you about as much as you trusted her. I thought maybe you'd been shaken around just enough that you'd listen to me instead of turning to violence again. I guess I was wrong."  
He paused, swallowed, and turned his eyes away from Jack, staring at a spot on the carpet. "Anyway. You can kill me now, if you want. At least give me the grace of making it quick." 

* * *

  
  


Creative contents of this document are © 2002 Kim Kondratieff.


	3. Evil Clone Seems Appropriate, Somehow

  
  


* * *

**Chapter 3**: Evil Clone--Seems Appropriate, Somehow...  
Of all the many times that Jack held the difference between a man's life and death literally in his hands, it had never been quite like this. Perhaps it was pity for Abernathy's absolute trust, or maybe after all the excitement of the past fifteen minutes he suddenly felt apathetic about further violence. Or maybe he wanted a real explanation out of Abernathy; or maybe it was all three. Or none. Whatever it was, Jack suddenly found himself quite unable to pull the trigger; instead, he dropped his aim and merely watched Abernathy, puzzling over the clone's words.  
_Could he be right?_ It was certainly a possibility that everything Abby had said was true; even despite his attitude, the clone had proven nothing less than loyal, though that loyalty depended on some twisted personal code that Jack didn't have the patience to work out.  
It was that same personal code that put it in his head to murder Rose. He also presented a very good target, sitting in the middle of the living room carpet and shivering like a kicked puppy, not nearly as dangerous and mysterious as he'd seemed at first. Mute submission to whatever Jack decided to do to him, as long as it wasn't too painful. Killer or no, Abby was apparently at heart still a diplomat, and a non-combatant, and wouldn't likely be able to stand up for himself much longer.  
_That's Abernathy for you. From impossible to pathetic in minutes. Hell._ Something glittered on the carpet just beneath the couch. Nudging the SOCOM's safety back on with a thumb, Jack shoved it into the back pocket of his jeans and slunk across the carpet, toward the glittering thing. It was what he'd suspected it to be, and in better condition than he thought. He dusted the object off with the hem of his shirt before crossing the rest of the distance to Abernathy. Dropping to a crouch before his clone, Jack reached out and dropped Abby's battered glasses on his knee.  
The move apparently puzzled Abernathy. He didn't immediately lose his obvious nervousness, still quivering as he picked up his glasses and set the bent frames to rights with an expert twist of his fingers. With fractured dignity, he settled them back on his nose, and glanced up. He arched one white brow in sullen inquiry as to the sudden kindness.  
Jack merely smirked. "You really should wear contacts, you know."  
The comment won a brittle answering smirk from Abernathy; his relief at not being immediately torn to shreds was palpable. "You must say that to all the girls. Tell me, should I be disturbed that the last person to hear that from you died a grisly death?"  
"Maybe. Start running if you see any vampires."  
"Ha. Sounds like most of the brainless twits I pretend to be friends with."  
"Good. You should stay away from them, too."  
"Awww, Jaaack! You never let me have any fun!"  
"Probably because _I'm_ the one who ends up bringing you home when you do."  
"Point."  
Silence fell between them for a moment, though it was an uneasy one, Jack's gaze never leaving Abernathy, Abby prodding cautiously at his broken wrist and hissing softly at the pain the movement caused. Apparently, it was up to Jack to get the conversation moving in the right direction again. He sighed. "You killed Rose."  
"...You must've hit your head against the wall much harder than I thought back there. That's only, what--the third time you've said that? Is it really that shocking?"  
One corner of Jack's mouth twitched, but he refused to be baited. There just wasn't enough emotion left in him to respond to Abby's jibes. "Why?"  
"I told you. The Patriots gave her a kill order before they turned her loose. If I know them at all, it was likely the same order they gave me." The clone's troubled pink gaze turned inward for a moment, in reflection. "...And Ocelot, for that matter, though I daresay the old fart's so wrapped up in his own sadism that he 'forgets' about that kind of thing when there's a good torturing to be had by all."  
For some reason, probably paranoia along these exact lines for the past six months, Jack was not at all surprised by this revelation. "And what did you do?"  
"I most assiduously did not kill you. Wait--is that not obvious? Shall I conscientiously point out how alive, and, ah--" Abby's good hand stole furtively toward his ribs, and he winced slightly, "--kicking you are?"  
The adrenaline kick was ebbing out of Jack's system, even artificially sustained by his nanites as it was. In its wake, it left the beginnings of a migraine on top of the rest of his aches and pains. "I mean with R...with her." He jerked his head in Rose's direction. Somehow, not using her name distanced him even further from the emotional tumult of before. Which was just fine with him.  
"Oh. It was...really more of an argument, truth be told, before it turned violent. Ah...I suppose you've already surmised I've not the balls to actually kill someone in cold blood; the whole affair was almost self-defense." Abernathy broke off, and then giggled again in weak hysteria. "Fancy that. I almost wanted to be a cold-blooded murderer, just like you, except I think the guilt would kill me if I didn't have an excuse for it."  
"So should I thank the Patriots you still have some kind of conscience left?" was Jack's dull reply. Even without Abernathy sniping at him, it took too much energy to keep the clone on the right track long enough to pry answers out of him.  
"Mm." Abby subsided briefly, cradling his wrist, his eyes downcast. "I suppose. They would have bred it out of me if they could, I imagine."  
"Huh."  
Silence again. Jack started abruptly as he found himself in a partial doze; Abernathy, too, seemed to have drifted off--until he spoke again, still not looking at anything in particular.  
"I imagine you'll want all the gory details, done up right proper like a military report. I forget how those begin, so I'll do my best without the boilerplate to guide me." He took a deep breath and let it out again in a very tired-sounding sigh; Jack simply waited, thoughts drifting.  
"I'd...expected something of the sort for the longest time; after all, the orders I was given made it abundantly clear that even if there would not necessarily be instant repercussions for my disobedience, they wouldn't be at all disagreeable with forcing matters along if one of us didn't act swiftly enough for them. There was the hint, too, that I--both of us, her and I--would be involved in whatever little 'accident' they decided to plan for you. I'm sure they also knew that, threat or no, I wouldn't carry out that particular piece of offal, and all their 'hopes' in seeing you done away with quietly rested on _her_ actions."  
It was so damn Byzantine that Jack's nascent migraine took the opportunity to blossom into the real thing. Apparently, things could _be_ so twisted and complex that the mere mention of them _could_ make your head hurt..."Go on," he prompted, softly, as Abby hesitated.  
"Right, then. Despite all their warnings to the contrary, apparently they were willing to be patient and wait for her to scheme up some little domestic homicide on her own time. I _imagine_ she was waiting for you to acquiesce to setting an actual marriage date--as deluded as she was--so she could play at being a happy little housewife for you before she put a knife in your back. Or maybe it was love that did it; even for all _I_ am sure she did mean it when she said she loved you, I'm not sure it was that and not her own little fantasies that prevented her from acting at once. Maybe she wanted to wait until the baby was born, so she didn't endanger it if you proved...ur...less-than-willing to die as per your scripted role."  
Jack scrubbed at his right temple with a thumb, nodding wearily. Even if he had trusted her, that struck him as quite like Rose and her schemes of their future domestic happiness. Funny that the most he'd thought he had to worry about was her conniving him into marriage before he was quite ready. He wished he dared leave Abby alone long enough to find some painkillers.  
Noting his progenitor's obvious discomfort, the clone quirked his mouth in an unhappy smile. "Migraine?"  
"Mhm." Was it clockwise or counterclockwise circles that worked best for this kind of thing? Rose would have known; but, oops, she was dead. The frightening thing was that it seemed like a better idea the longer Jack listened to Abernathy.  
"I'd thought as much. I get them, you get them--familial curse, as it were. I'll make this short." The clone wavered visibly, murmuring a stream of curses under his breath, and amended: "Very short.  
"So, Rose. Come to think, after that nasty miscarriage business under Ocelot's manhandling, I almost begin to think it might've been postpartum depression--not that I'm one to know anything about it--that pushed her right over the edge. And, with her baby dead, that was one less hook in you...ah. Sorry. I begin to ramble again."  
Jack waved a hand in acquiescence; rambling was an unfortunate part of the package deal that he'd gotten by accepting the clone--however reluctantly--as a part of his family. Returned to trying to reduce the headache to a manageable level, while still listening to the disjointed narrative.  
Cloth squeaked against leather as Abby shifted his weight again, apparently in as much discomfort as Jack was. His words were becoming slightly more disjointed as he spoke, broken up by the occasional gasp of pain. "--Whatever the reason, she seemed to have chosen today to get some of hers back. --Fortunate that I happened to actually want to be home today, mm? --She'd just come home, and I was lurking around the kitchen or some damn fool thing like that when she promptly sat down in the middle of the hallway and started into one of those little...crying...jag things she's been going off onto. I, ah--went to..." His eyes glazed slightly as he stared at some point on the carpet, fishing for words.  
"...Comfort her?" Jack supplied, wearily. "Wait. Torment her, knowing you." The massage idea was _definitely_ not working. As if to spite him, the migraine was actually becoming worse. Getting up to find a bottle of codeine meant leaving Abernathy to his own devices, with abundant evidence that _that_ was a particularly dangerous thing to do. On the other hand--  
"You wound me," Abernathy interrupted Jack's musings, voice deadpan, and mimed taking a heart-thrust. Or tried earnestly; he made an earnest effort to raise his right hand and flinched, dropping it back to his lap. Repeated the gesture with the opposite hand, and continued: "See how I bleed--oh, damn."  
Apparently, he did bleed, and copiously. He pulled his left hand back from his shoulder, red-stained, and gave Jack a hopeless look. "--As you can see, I didn't get away _entirely_ unscathed. Girl was good with a gun, you...have to give her that."  
That was quite enough. Jack was sick of the headache, sick of Abernathy's tangled clots of words that he tried to pass off as sentences, and certain the clone was scared enough to sit there and bleed to death if Jack didn't do something to get him moving. Worse, someone was bound to have heard the noise they had been making and come to investigate. The promise of a possible scuffle in the near future served to drag Jack's thoughts right round to the present. They'd wasted enough time as it was. "Damn straight. Now get up; you can tell me the rest later."  
He uncurled from his crouch, thoughts already racing a step or two ahead. They needed to get to a hospital, preferably one out of Patriot control. _That_ thought made him laugh humorlessly; where was there _anything_ in the country out of Patriot control?  
The laughter startled Abernathy. He looked up at his progenitor sharply; the old touch of fear making its way back into his eyes. "What, planning to beat it out of me? Or is this some kind of...truce?"  
There really wasn't any time for this. Jack pulled the gun out of his pocket, took the safety back off, and pointed it at Abernathy's forehead. "No. I'm trying to decide if what you've got to say is interesting enough to keep me from killing you and leaving both your bodies for the police. Now _move_."  
Where reason didn't work, threats still did. Abernathy moved as bidden, getting to his feet and swaying a moment with disorientation. He opened his mouth, as if to protest, only to have Jack press the gun square against his chest. "...What do you want me to do, Drummerboy?"  
That was better. "Get whatever you need for the night. _Just_," he added, as a calculating gleam crept into those pink eyes, "essentials, dammit. We need to travel light."  
"On it, oh lord and master." Abernathy saluted mockingly with his left hand, and immediately disappeared down the hall.  
_Runs fast for a wounded guy_, Jack thought, facetiously, and relaxed somewhat. He glanced down at the gun in his hand, taken with a sudden wave of revulsion. The desire to throw the murder weapon away was intense...but the rational part of his mind checked it immediately, pointing out that the disgust was purely psychic and he would need to protect himself in the near future. It didn't specify whether or not that protection would be needed against Patriot agents or Abernathy. It hardly mattered.  
Time to straighten things up. Setting the gun down on the couch, Jack stepped lightly over the tumbled furniture to where Rose's inert form still lay. _I'm sorry this had to happen, Rose. I suppose I really did end up hurting you by trying to protect myself._ He reached down, touching two fingers lightly to her dead lips by way of sealing his contrition.  
All the apologies in the world wouldn't make it right, though. And long goodbyes gave the enemy time to aim. He had to make this look good; enough that anyone who came poking around the apartment wouldn't immediately think murder had been committed. Straightening, he spotted it over near the patio doors; kicked there during the scuffle, most likely. Now, it was only a matter of getting another clip for it. He threaded his way back through the wreckage of the room and reached down to grab the gun.  
"Yo, Drummerboy."  
Jack jerked upright again, throwing an irritated glance back over his shoulder at his clone. "What?"  
Abernathy smirked from his spot in the hallway, where he stood with his laptop's satchel slung over his good shoulder, daypack clutched by the straps in his left hand. Apparently that was his idea of light. "You're trying to fake a little suicide, I assume."  
"Yeah. And?"  
"--Do it _right_, will you? You were about to put your fingerprints all over that nice clean gun. That's one of the first things they check, you know. And then I'd imagine you'd put in a full clip with the wrong ammunition and--"  
"Oh, so they taught you forensics, too?" he snapped back, irritated by the other man's superior tone.  
"Of course not. I watch CSI." Abby smiled engagingly at Jack's sudden black look. "You--go do something. Go pack or whatever you want; _I'll_ do this." He flicked a hand at Jack, already starting toward his progenitor and the gun in question.  
A sudden, glorious mental image of shoving Abby face-first through the patio door crossed Jack's mind. He promptly squashed it. "Like hell I'm going to leave you alone with a gun."  
The clone stopped short, expression aggrieved. "What? You think that I'm going to catch any _less_ hell for this if we're caught? What does it profit _me_ to add another murder to this one?"  
"Last I checked, you don't even exist as far as anyone's records are concerned," Jack rejoined, tone dark. "And how convenient for you if the whole thing ends up looking like a murder-suicide, huh? We have the same fingerprints, after all--it wouldn't be that difficult for you, would it?"  
Something about these words seemed to splinter Abernathy's already-fragile resolve. His gaze dropped; he slunk over to an overturned chair and tipped it upright. Arranging his two bags around its legs as best he could with one arm, he sat down with injured dignity and without raising his eyes from the carpet. "...Fine. Whatever. Go...do...whatever you need to; I suppose I'll leave it to you to come up with some way to extemporize a solution to all this."  
That was likely as much of a concession from Abernathy as Jack was going to get; and he hardly cared. "Good. Stay here and don't _do_ anything until I get back." He paused, then added nastily: "It'll lessen your chances of bleeding to death."  
A grunt met Jack's words; he merely smiled thinly and reclaimed the two pistols. There was still plenty to do, and now on the short timeframe before Abernathy lost what little remaining sanity he had. Money, extra ammo, his Skull Suit, the sword--they should all be in one of the dressers somewhere, provided Rosemary hadn't gone and switched them all again. Another little quirk of her personality he supposed he'd begin to miss, eventually...  
It was going to be one hell of a Thursday afternoon. 

* * *

  
  


Contents of this document are © 2002 Kim Kondratieff.


	4. Interlude: Wolves and Sheep

  
  


* * *

**Interlude:** Wolves and Sheep  
"Did we recover the body successfully?"  
"Yes. The police never suspected anything."  
"Well done, in that case. We hate inconsistencies in the face of public officials."  
"It was surprisingly easy. The agent we sent was known for taking his own initiative in these matters; the explanation he came up with was...quite creative."  
"Oh?"  
"Religious observance. He claimed to be from a group that saw an autopsy as an 'invasive procedure', along with any other form of investigation they wanted to use the cadaver for."  
"And they believed this and let him walk off with it?"  
"...No, not exactly."  
"What 'exactly', then?"  
"The disturbance he created was enough that the morgue technician could get the body back in a bag and replace it with a similar corpse. She was one of ours."  
"Really. So it wasn't as smooth as it could have been."  
"I would say you could hold off on promoting him."  
"Good enough. Was the corpse in good condition?"  
"Excellent condition. Sundowner did exactly as he was instructed; we are 99% sure that he had no clue that his actions were scripted from the beginning of the murder to the end."  
"Beautiful. So the prototype--?"  
"--Is operating well within normal range, as we had anticipated it would."  
"Beautiful. Then all is going exactly to plan."  
"Yes, it is. I was especially impressed when I realized that he _believed_ it was the gunshot wound that had killed her."  
"We do not do slipshod work. You should know that by now."  
"No, I do. But I also know your fondness for, shall we say, preliminary testing."  
"The science we used has been tried and tested on him before; never to such an extent, but we knew its capabilities. He has been well-trained."  
"Interesting. Why spend so much time on individuals, anyway? They can't change anything--"  
"So we say. So we know. Many of them are no better than sheep; do you really expect them to work against the flock?"  
"No; and I thought--"  
"You thought wrong. But continue."  
"--I _thought_ that it would be considered a waste of time to try and elevate one of these 'sheep' above the flock."  
"We said 'many' are no better; not all. Had you ever considered about the wolves we use to herd them?"  
"I...hadn't."  
"Of course. Even you think as a part of the flock. You are not a wolf; your agents are not wolves. Just an elevated kind of sheep. Now go."  
"Yes, sirs."  


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Contents of this document are © 2002 Kim Kondratieff.


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